I had just finished a very long day at YellowstoneNational Park.Did the whole geyser tour, hiked about a cumulative of 5 miles in the sulphur smelling gas they exude and then decided to climbMt. Washburn which is 10,300 ft towards the later afternoon. Came down Washburn Moutain with only one thing in mind; food.Price was no concern, quality was no concern, I would have killed a buffalo and eaten it raw right in front of a ranger if I had seen one.So I headed south into a small village/town called Canyon and there was a place called “The Canyon Lodge.”

There’s a 20 minute wait, but it didn’t matter it was the only place to eat.Soon enough we get called and I open the menu.Prices are exorbitant.A Rueben sandwich cost $14, a salad was $12, but I didn’t care, I was that hungry.So while we wait for our waitress I start reading the backside of the menu which goes over the history of the Canyon Lodge;

“We here are the Canyon Lodge understand how important nature and the environment are to the world.That’s why we here at the Canyon Lodge strive to do our best to recycle and use only natural, organic foods to not only do our best for the environment but help others of diverse cultural, ethnic, socio and economic backgrounds do theirs.”

I got up, looked at my buddy across the table and said, “F#ck this sh!t.We’re outta here!”

I said, “I don’t care.I’m willing to drive back to Cody to avoid paying these a$$holes any of my money.”Which is precisely what we did.

For while Cody was 80 miles away, back in Cody was a place called Irma’s.Irma’s is a bar/restaurant/roadhouse.We stopped there before and martini’s cost $2.50, you could smoke, Texas Hold Em was going on in the back, they had Wi-Fi and their Rueben’s didn’t cost $14. All in all it was the classical case of a capitalist entity running circles around a socialist entity in terms of quality and price.But the real reason I was willing to drive the 80 miles back to Cody was that their menus wouldn’t preach or proselytize to use some leftist, socialist, enviro-Nazi creed.Cody treated their customers like adults and instead of TELLING the customer how they should live their lives (while coincidentally serving overpriced food at the same time) their primary goal was to run a good bar and restaurant and not give a damn how you led your life.

And this is an important lesson for all you global-warming freaks, Obama-social-justice-types and varied sorts of holier-than-thou crusading liberals out there;you will piss off and enrage more people by lecturing and proselytizing to people your warped little religion than just letting us be and letting us make our own decisions for ourselves.It’s like any type of religious zealot coming up to your house, knocking on your door and trying to ram their religion down your throat.You will do more damage than good for your cause.

Worse still for your little do-nothing-but-make-myself-feel-better-crusade, I fathom there will inevitably be a backlash.Forget the fact YOU caused me to burn more gas to drive out to Cody on pure principle and ultimately countered your intentions of fighting global warming.What if every time I hear about some global warming fraud spewing his crap, I get sick of it and just to piss him off and counter his intentions I decide to burn a gallon of gas?Or drive my 8 cylinder car instead of the motorcycle?What if every time somebody hears about ANWR being denied drilling by congress, they decide to go and hunt down a polar bear?Or better yet, I become a “polar bear terrorist” and hold hostage 40 polar bears and unless “my demands you open ANWR are met, the 40 polar bears get it!” killing more polar bears than ANWR ever would?Or for every time ELF burns a Hummer dealership, somebody decides to go and burn a Prius dealership?

Of course, these things are extreme, and most hard working capitalists are too busy earning a living to have time to go on little polar bear assassination crusades (unlike our leftist counterparts), but I think the time is nigh for me to stop recycling, start a weekly “gallon o’ gas burning event” and start burning Styrofoam, paint and whatever other things I shouldn’t be doing and others should do the same.Anything to cause more “damage” to the environment in the eyes of these environmentalist zealots in retaliation for their arrogance to dare lecture and proselytize to us about how we lead our lives.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Unless they're buying a new boat with the last morsel of home equity they built up in their house, it seems Americans, despite some of the lowest taxes in the developed world and higher income per capita than most, still are unaware just how well off they are;

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Given the nefarious forces against it and the statistically improbably bad luck they've had, such frivolousity makes me want to see it more. They damn well better show this movie. If for any other reason pansy leftists have constantly fought against it.

Finally I'm off to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. Ever since I was a poor little capitalist, the Grand Tetons and Wyoming were the preserve of rich children whose parents obligatorily took them there. Now, at the ripe age of 33, I finally have the time and resources to visit both.

You can fully expect I shall climb many peaks, fish many streams and find many fossils.

Unfortunately you can also expect very little internet access so my posts may be sparse.

If there are any Captain Capitalismites out in the area, shoot me an e-mail and we shall get a drink together.

Much like Fonzi jumping over the shark marked the end to "Happy Days" I think we're going to look back and say, "Remember Madonna and her wrinkly thunder thighs? Yeah, that was the beginning of the end for the baby boomers."I don't know what people were thinking to bank roll this old has been hag, but I think it's a syndrome or a psychological problem that affects a disproportionate amount of baby boomers. That they just plain don't want to grow up, and will do whatever is in their power to convince themselves they're still young. Thus we get Madonna woefully misinformed that she is somehow some kind of cougar, the flabby armed McJager performing at the super bowl, and morons whose pinnacle of life was 1968 and just plain can't get over the fact that it's not only over, but their lives since have been pretty pathetic.

But the reason I bring this up, isn't so much Madonna or lame Viagra variant commercials where boomer males are playing guitars and windsurfing, but there is indeed a more fundamental power shift occurring.

First was the obvious ass kicking Obama delivered to the heiress entitled Hilary Clinton. If there was a person who personified the centralized power the baby boomers had, it was Hilary Clinton. And out of nowhere a rookie nobody freshman senator comes and usurps the role. Gen X was coming online, and for better or worse, remember the shenanigans of Bill Clinton and wonder just what a political operator Hilary had to have been to tolerate Bill's indiscretions and not dump his ass, and ended up exerting their power.

Second is this housing crash and subsequent credit crisis. If there is a generational, generalized culprit to blame for the housing bubble and the idiocy that occurred, it was the baby boomers. Though there were certainly younger salesmen and mortgage brokers to blame, at the head of practically every financial institution leading the way was a baby boomer. Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Countrywide, you name it. Even every boss I had at smaller banks whilst working in banking was a baby boomer; the one who had 1 in every 2 loans go into default. The one who approve a $25,000 loan for a guy THAT AFTERNOON WITH NO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS. The one who told me "no, the Federal Reserve figures are wrong." All of them boomers and all of them making grave errors. And such a distaste and disaster has the housing crash left in America's mouth, there is now a managerial and power shake up in the financial services industry, just in time for some of the older Gen-X'ers to take the help or at least start poaching some executive and senior management positions.

And thirdly, a slumbering giant is slowly waking up as the younger generations get wise to this social security farce. Shaking off the laced kool-aid we were fed in college about socialism and social security and medicare and medicaid, more and more members of the younger generations are going online and pulling readily and easily accessible data on just how much they can expect to shell out and are waking up. Across political spectrums I see this. Doesn't matter if they eco-terrorists, marxist Obama supporters or you evil right wing puppy kicking republicans. Anybody under 40 when you mention social security makes some joke about Santa Claus and the easter bunny and them mumbles some curse words under their breath.

In any case, it won't be an immediate handover of power, it will be long and dragged out. And matter of fact, given how long it's taking Madonna to retire, we my younger American friends are in for a battle as long and contested as the Battle of Somme.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

I was looking up some stats on Nation Master and as is often the case the data they have is amazing so you get lost. I was originally looking up some other health statistics, but then I saw a link to abortion and curiosity got the best of me and so I asked myself "who has the most abortions?" Based on a per capita basis it is Russia (ironically the country that has such birthing and demographic trends it will cease to exist in 50 years) with a shockingly high 19 abortions per thousand people.

I then saw below a link to another chart, Abortions per 1,000 births. ie-for every 1,000 births how many abortions were there. Thinking it would be around 10-19 or so like the abortion rate I was shocked to find the average was around 223 in the US (state data only was provided) and an amazing 706 abortions per 1,000 births in our beloved capital, Washington, D.C. ie-on average 12% of pregnancies in the US end in abortion and in DC over a third.

Now I genuinely have no skin in the abortion debate one way or another and if anything I am tacitly pro-choice (for reasons we shan't delve into here). But even though I am pro-choice, with 706 abortions per 1,000 births, it doesn't seem like abortion is being used as a desperate last resort, it seems it's almost the first line, conventional form of birth control. What appalls me about this is whether you're pro-choice or pro-life, you have to admit it is not "desired" to kill something that could feasibly be a human life. ie-that abortion is something you try to avoid and only use as a last measure. But apparently, a lot of people have no moral qualms or problems with having abortions. That there's no thought given to "gee, I don't know if it really is a human life. You know, maybe I should go on birth control or something so I never have to make the decision to have an abortion in the first place." Alas, this is not the case in DC and a couple other places where abortion just seems to be as morally equivalent to getting a tetanus shot. And dare I speculate, a much more expensive form of birth control than a condom?

Saturday, August 23, 2008

I wish I could curse like this. I really do because cursing if used correctly adds the emphasis and flavor to points you're trying to make. Sadly (though not so sadly) a fair amount of youth read this blog and thus I keep it PG. In any case, pay our Canadian Canuck a visit. He makes a very important point;

And then the connection was made. You see, the Mississippi splits North Minneapolis more or less in half into two areas; NE and NW.

NE is kind of a blue collar, lower middle income neighborhood while NW is our version of Cabrini Green. And one of the bridges that spans the Mississippi and connects the two neighborhoods is the Lowry bridge. (Lowry bridge is in Green, NW is in Red).

What gets me however is just 1 mi south of the Lowry bridge is the Broadway bridge (blue). One would think just taking out one bridge with another bridge a convenient mile away would not drop crime as the criminals to do their dirty work would just take the short mile detour, but it did.

This confirms something about criminals I've always suspected; they're lazy. If criminals weren't lazy, then they would have gone the "extra mile" and done their business. By by the fact they're criminals, that means they don't care to work or contribute to society because presumably work takes too much effort that it is worth the legal risk to commit crime.

In any case, one can certainly expect an increase in crime in the NE neighborhood.

Friday, August 22, 2008

I was always curious what would happen to the economy if all of the sudden women decided to dolls themselves up in french maid or naughty librarian outfits and upon their husbands or boyfriends walking through the door started, ahem, "making with the bam bam."

My theory was this would make men much happier and trigger a productivity boost which would translate into economic growth. I then pondered being the president of the Federal Reserve and creating indices measuring the sales of french maid outfits as an economic indicator.

Regardless, I did inevitably get around to finding a "frequency of sex rate" and compared it to the average economic growth of about a score of OECD nations. And as I surmised, the correlation between the frequency of sex and economic growth is positive.

A correlation coefficient of .2 no less.

Now don't ask me to adjust for outliers. And don't ask me about the confidence interval. Just shut up and appreciate what we got here; Empirical, conclusive indisputable proof that sex causes more economic growth.

Alas, when I am president, there will not be any of this impotent "stimulus" package nonsense. I shall just merely decree a "Naughty Nurse" holiday.

Again, one of the common questions I get is "how much further will housing prices have to drop" and it's like being asked "Are we there yet?"

No, we still have 300 miles and two potty breaks, now shut the hell up and play with your rocks I bought you or so help me I will sell you to some locals at the next Wisconsin bar for two shots of whiskey!

..or so I see myself saying if I were ever to have children.

In any case, it doesn't look good for housing prices because vacancy rates for both rentals AND homes have gone up.

This directly affects the primary driver of value for housing; rents. With so many vacancies, the amount you can rent those properties out for has gone down. This drives the value of those properties down and until we stop building housing or governments top pursuing affordable housing plans ain't nobody's property going to be going up.

So buckle in and get comfy. Lot more miles to go before we "are there yet."

As there is much ballyhoo and debate as to whether or not we're in a recession, I've found it typically economist-ish for the Federal Reserve and the NBER to have different definitions of a recession. This only continues to further confuse the masses and deter people from not only studying economics, but trying to understand it.

Ergo, I was happy when I saw this on Foxnews which does a pretty good job breaking down the differences between NBER's definition of a recession and the traditional definition of a recession.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Then came the larger more reputable firms that should have known better; UBS, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

Then it spilled over into the quasi governmental organizations, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

And so I will predict the fall of another governmental agency which will then behoove an infusion of taxpayer cash to effectively contribute its small portion to a nearly trillion dollar transfer of income from the responsible people to the deadbeats; the Small Business Administration.

The SBA is often not thought about when it comes to the housing crash, but during my days as an analyst if a person wouldn’t qualify for a loan on their own, why the good ol’ federal government would come in the taxpayers’ (read – your) money and guarantee, sometimes up to 85%, of the loan if it were to go bad.

Of course this was primarily for business loans, not housing, but one must understand that large firms like GM and American Express don’t go to the SBA for loans.Small time sole proprietors and entrepreneurs do.And what is primarily the only form of capital a small individual has?

Their house of course!

And thus billions of dollars were lent out to small time proprietors for a bevy of ventures, all collateralized by housing and all guaranteed by the SBA (ie-the taxpayer, ie – you).

Now this would be fine if the loans made were good, high quality loans.

But they weren’t.At least not what I saw being shipped off to the SBA.I don’t know how many deadbeats that wanted to “start a sports bar” or “open a hair salon” or “raise cats.”And of course these ill-thought out plans were doomed from the beginning, but that doesn’t matter.The SBA was there to help those little people that those big bad banks wouldn’t.

And so I predict you will see (albeit, it may be kept hush hush in the media) the SBA getting a might big infusion of cash from the beloved taxpayer.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

If McCain was smart, he'd demand she run for VP. Not on account that she's black (which, though, would throw a hell of a wrench into the democrat's plans), but that she is just plain simply the best qualified candidate out there (some would argue more qualified than McCain and they would be right).

Alas, we're going to get some boring cookie cutter Republican that is not going to instill any sort of excitement at all.

Not once, bar my days back at the police department, have I ever had a job where I actually worked more than 50% of the time. And it was not due to laziness or sloth on my part, as much as it was management was unable to manage the company's resources efficiently to produce enough work to keep me occupied 40 hours a week.

This I surmise is the case for the majority of American workers and thus we have to learn the art of "looking busy" constantly having an Excel spreadsheet up we can alt-tab to if we sense a superior nearby. But it got me thinking, "how could a company waste up to 20 hours each week on each employee? Wouldn't they like to have their savings or at least get 40 hours of work out of them?"

And then I further thought, "how many people would willingly take a pay cut by switching from salary to hourly if it meant they could go home when they have no work to do."

It was these two revelations I had that led me to conclude that someday, maybe not in my lifetime, the traditional 9-5, 40 hours a week employee will cease to exist as we know it. The costs savings and efficiency gains are too tempting to companies and the lure of freedom from work instead of having to have your mind melt while checking e-mail for the 90th time that day is just as tempting to workers. Companies could cut down on their health care costs, and I think employees would be just fine with that if it meant they could go fishing or spend more time with their kids. I don't even think workers would have to suffer that much in less pay as if they agree to forfeit health care to have the same pay but only work 20 hours a week

Thus, there will be no employees, just contractors.

Then again, I could be wrong. Corporate America, as I've surmised before, is in it more for power than anything approaching progress or profitability. And daring to let people have the freedom to go home if they're efficient and do their job faster than others is near blasphemy. Oh well, another brilliant idea doomed to failure on account of maintaining the status quo.

Monday, August 18, 2008

I've befriended a bunch of union guys. Railroads primarily, but construction and other blue collar trades as well. And what amazes me is that by the age of 50-55, all it takes is something as simple as Bill Clinton cheating on his wife or a terrorist attack to get them to COMPLETELY change their political views. And while I certainly welcome their joining of the good side of the force, it behooves the question;

Do union members ever bother THINKING about what they support politically?

Now, seriously guys, are you so naive and stupid, you don't have the ability to put 2 and 2 together or (what Joe Soucheray would otherwise say) "link?"

I like to simplify it to the "Host and Parasite" analogy.

The "host" is GM, Ford and Chrysler. The parasite is the UAW. If it were not for GM, Ford and Chrysler, the parasite would not have a job, period. So what does the parasite do? Bleeds the host dry until the host dies.

I cannot emphasize this enough, and I sincerely hope that some of you UAW people are listening, but you brought about your own demise. You killed the goose that laid the golden egg. You priced yourselves out of the market.

And now, when GM, Ford and Chrysler are crippled, old decrepit men of corporations compared to their younger, more fit and competitive Japanese counterparts, you support the guy who will MORE QUICKLY bring about the demise of your employers? You, LITERALLY, support the QUICKENING of the ELIMINATION of your EMPLOYER and therefore JOBS??????

I really (seriously, I mean this) have a hard time believing you are that stupid.

It kind of reminds me of my dad or even Michael Medved (who I respect), who all of the sudden had an epiphany (read, pulled their heads out of their asses) and realized "whoa whoa whoa....You mean their's consequences for voting for socialists all the time?????"

I want to yell (not say) to them;

WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN THIS ENTIRE TIME???? 50 FREAKING YEARS OLD AND NOW YOU GET IT???? WHAT A FREAKING TROOPER YOU ARE!!!! THANKS FOR PISSING AWAY 35 YEARS OF VOTES ON THE BAD GUYS!!!! YEAH, GET A FREAKING BRAIN WHEN YOU'RE 52. LOT OF GOOD THAT WILL DO US!!!!

And for the union members it's the same.

When the F are you guys going to wake up? Yeah, Obama, he'll tax those evil auto manufacturers for you! He'll give them their due! That'll show those rich, evil meanie corporate executive types!

Meanwhile, where did Ford decide to build the next Fiesta plant?

Oh, that's right. MEXICO! The country where (although I loathe the illegal immigrant wave) they seem to provide people with a strong and more American work ethic than you guys.

In any case, I've learned at a relatively young age, it's not worth yelling at you guys because you're so lug-headed you'll be willing to hasten your own demise ("hasten" means "faster"). The only reason I write anymore is so I have a track record where I can point to at a future date in time and tell you "I told you so."

Greetings all junior, deputy, aspiring, official or otherwise economists.

As you may have noticed the side bar disappeared a little bit ago and has since returned. This was due to a partially successful attempt to add a couple images and links to my side bar.

"Partially" because while I did get the link to connect, the image (which I did scale for the width of the side bar) did not come through. Additionally if you are using MS Explorer the entirety of the side bar was shifted to the bottom of the page.

If there are any HTML or programmer type economists out there that might have a solution for this I would be immensely grateful. I am currently poking around trying to find the code to prevent the scroll down and the issues I'm having with the image size, but if anybody out there happens to have an answer/solution to this, that would be grand.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

If there's anything I loathe it is how the public education system has absolutely no reservations about brainwashing children at such a young age to become socialists. It's "brainwashing" and "concentration camps" if people on the right try to teach children the merits of capitalism, but it's compassion and caring if you teach them to become little Lenins.

The truth is though, they're only doing this for future job security. Wouldn't do the present day liberals any favor in the future to teach the youth about lower taxes and cutting government spending or the merits of fiscal austerity.

Friday, August 15, 2008

And so it is not an infrequent even where I will be sitting there watching a movie with some cut up peppers and a dish of vegetable dip.

However, I am also an economist. And so when you cut the peppers open you see seeds, hundreds and hundreds of seeds, emanating from the stem.

Now since I am a bachelor, yet at the same time an economist, it presents a paradox and these two traits become the shoulder angel and the shoulder devil.

The good wholesome economist in me says, "waste not! Look at all those potential peppers! Look at the production you could achieve! And impossible to tax no less! Go and plant those peppers and then you will have even more peppers to consume while effectively at the same time producing more in your life than a piece studies major!"

But then the sly, lazy, bachelor devil within me stirs, and protests, "Ehhh, peppers. Have to water the peppers. Have to till. Don't wanna till. Wanna sit here and smoke my cigar outside and drink whiskey. Want to play a video game where you plant peppers, but not actually plant them in the real world. Herman the Bachelor Bunny will probably eat the peppers. Just throw the pepper seeds away and smoke and drink instead."

But with some cajoling from a female friend of mine, who agreed to till a spot of land for me and plant something beyond peppers, I decided to let the economist in me rule and effectively became a bachelor economist sharecropper. The girl gets 25% of the produce, I just have to water it.

Of course this was 3 months ago and little was I told just how long you have to water these damn things before they bear fruit. And if you miss just even one day on the cucumbers, you can kiss them good-bye. And when i wanted to go out west to Sturgis, you had to find a surrogate waterer. It was just like having a kid.

And then I had an epiphany. I figured, that if you don't have the ability or desire to keep a small garden, then you probably shouldn't be having kids. And that if we could somehow test people when they're in college or high school, give them the garden test, we can then see how good or bad of parents they'd be.

This would result in immense savings for the tax payer as those with gardens that look like mine would be effectively banned from having children. My children would be malnourished, dry, kind of droopy (judging by the tomato leaves) and have weeds growing all over them. If child protection saw my garden they would insist on a vasectomy. My female friend on the other hand, who takes great care in nurturing and caring for her rival bachelorette CPA garden would have children that are healthy and strong and would go well on a pizza.

Regardless, if you and the significant other economist in your life are thinking about having children, try growing a garden first.

I get an occasional e-mail from an insider I have in the oil industry (we occasionally get together after work and club seals and shoot polar bears when Dick Cheney gives us permission). She sent me a response the oil industry had to the group of 10, the democrats and republican congressmen who compromised on opening up "some" lands to new exploration.

But I like to keep things simple, because I'm a busy man. And so I asked her if I had the short version correctly which is listed below in a short e-mail exchange we had;

And that about sums it up. You can't find oil where the oil isn't located. Just like you can't find monkeys in the Arctic, nor can you find polar bears in Honduras or sane people in San Francisco.

Notice the natural response would be for these oil companies to go outside the US to find their oil. Ahhh, yet another 10,000 potential jobs lost to idiotic environmental fascism not to mention the furtherance of our dependence on foreign oil. Right now the Saudi's and all oil producers LOVE the democratic party.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

This is a repost, sorry for the repost, but I'm testing the new Del icio, Digg, etc., link buttons I've put in to see if they work. Figured it's one of my better posts so it might get some linkage.

I will confess!

Many years ago when men were giants and women were angels "The Guys" all lived in this house in St. Paul.

The house was a holy and sacred temple to bachelortude.

Owned by one particularly savvy member of "The Guys," he would rent it out to 4 other friends. However, even if you didn't live there, if you were one of "The Guys" you could walk in at any hour (doors always unlocked), crash there any night, and to appease the Great Gods of Bachelortude, occasionally bring a sacrifical 12 pack of beer.

Thusly, my friends and I would pay nightly homage to "The House of Bachelortude" by drinking, playing 16 person X-Box linked Halo Fests till 3 AM, WarCraft, Texas Hold 'Em, throwing the occasional party, and I explicity remember one night requiring banning all communications with girlfriends (UNLESS the girlfriends came over bearing gifts of beer and food which would earn them a 5 minute audience with their boyfriend, whose dumbasses should have been covering my approach to the blue team's base with the sniper rifle while playing Sidewinder in Halo, but oh no, somebody has got to go talk to his girlfriend, meanwhile I'm run over with a tank and the Blue Team has the bazooka and shotgun and is heading over to our base...I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU KILGS!!!!!!)

And life was good.

But as this was The House of Bachelortude the magazine subscriptions were not exactly The Economist or the Journal of American Political Economy...actually it was FHM and Playboy.Not that we had a choice in the matter you understand. The Great Gods of Bachelortude DEMANDED IT! So what were we to do? You don't want to incur the wrath of The Great Gods of Bachelortude!

Anyway, as I said before I will confess, that while waiting for the pizza to show up, or being recently defeated in a game of Texas Hold 'Em I would peruse the most recent issue of Playboy that would be strewn on the table (to appease The House of Bacherlortudeof course).

While not as attractive as some of the charts I've seen in The Economist, I will admit some of the girls were OK looking. Of course as any good economist would do, I read the footnotes to make sure the source is reputable, the methodology sound, etc. But instead of reading "Source: Retroactively Applying Standardized Unemployment Rates in Sweden, OECD Sept 12, 2006" the footnotes to these Playboy models was;

"Bambi Jones, Age 23, Height 5'2" weight 105 pounds. Degree - Bachelors of Arts in Sociology from the University of Arizona."

And then my economic spidey senses started tingling. For fresh in my memory was when I was stood up, not once, not twice, but thrice by a drop dead, Playboy-esque girl who had went to school for cosmotology. This observation, combined with my utter disdain for fluffy majors got me thinking;

Was there a correlation???

Do Playboy Playmates pursue easy degrees?

And if so, do they pursue these degrees because they're dumb?

Or are they just bidding their time in college majoring in philosophy whilst scoping out for a husband effectively earning themselves an MRS. degree?

Furthermore, should they not find a husband are these degrees so worthless that they resort to baring it all to make ends meet?

And finally, can what daddy's little girl major in be a predictor of whether millions of young horn-dog guys will see daddy's little girl spread eagle on a centerfold?

So I set forth to conduct this serious study. Selflessly dedicating my time for the sake of advancing our understanding of economics. And took it upon myself to study all the Playboy Playmate's profiles and see what they majored in.

No no, you don't have to thank me. It's my patriotic and American duty to foist this heavy burden upon myself. And it is the least I can do to repay the great freedoms our forefathers fought so valiantly for.

The results?

Here is a breakdown of what Playboy Playmates studied in college;

*Note, the vast majority of Playmates either didn't attend or list whether they attended college. This includes all the data found on Wikipedia for all playmates going back to 1980. An interesting side note, the further back you go, less and less playmates went to college reflecting the increasing trend in labor force participation by women. Total number of playmates that listed a major was 54, understand this does not mean they finished college or earned a degree. It just mentioned college.

What is amazing is how there is not one, NOT ONE COMPUTER PROGRAMMER OR PRE-MED OR PHYSICS OR OR ACCOUNTING OR ENGINEERING MAJOR (bar Cindy Crawford who spent 1 quarter in chemical engineering, but never graduated). The majority of playmates pursue degrees in utter fluff, the biggest pulls being "psychology," "acting/theater," "journalism," "communications," "education," "junior college," and that weak pathetic worthless degree that tries to score some credibility as passing itself off as a "business major;" marketing.

I further simplified this chart between what I like to call "Fluffy El Crapo Degrees" and "Real Degrees That Will Get You A Freaking Job."

A full 82% of the playmates that went to college, effectively wasted their time and pursued worthless degrees, whilst a paltry 18% actually went and did something useful with their time (sadly even this can't be said as most of them didn't graduate with those degrees, when you adjust for this it literally is only about 3%).

So what lesson can we take away from this fellow aspiring and junior deputy economists?

How can we end this post so that in a Stan and Kyle like way we say,

"you know, I think we learned something here today."

Well, for one, maybe Larry Summers shouldn't have been punished for his truthful statement that women just aren't cutting it in the real sciences. Maybe good ol' Larry was just trying to prevent some of these young girls from having to resort to posing nude to make ends meet or make a living. Maybe Larry was trying to actually do something tangible that would help close the wage gap between men and women by getting more women into the sciences and engineering.

Secondly, maybe we ought to cut back on fluffy subjects in not just the high schools but the colleges as well. Enough of the "pscyhology" or "sociology" or "communications" crap. And certainly do away with "peace studies" programs. Maybe instead of enticing women with the false illusion that they're going to make it big or even make it period with touchy feely degrees that we show them just what caliber go and pursue such worthless degrees and encourage them to pursue careers that would actually increase their incomes and make them TRULY independent women.

Third, upper middle income fathers who think "daddy's little girl can do no wrong," think daddy's little girl is superior to all other humans, and think nothing of preparing his little girl for the real world beyond giving her his credit card for a trip to the mall better pull his head out of his ass and start fathering instead of thinking his arrogance and bank account is going to carry through his little suburbanite princesses. That you might want to instill a little work ethic in her and teach her the merits of work and self-reliance before you go and buy her a little Honda Del Sol or Pontiac Sunfire.

And finally, if daddy's little girl goes into the fluff-stuff for college, be aware that the day might just come when you go to the office and all the other guys will see just how much your little princess has grown up.

However, there is a way to prevent this embarrassing situation. Note that the sciences;

engineering, computers, medicine, physics, chemistry, etc.

are like a vaccine practically innoculating your little girl from ever showing her assets to the entire world and all the horn-dogs at The House of Bachelortude. Again, Cindy Crawford is the only one to major in engineering, and she gave that up because she had the rare opportunity to become a bona fide supermodel. And although I didn't add it up, the majority of "post playboy careers" a lot of these playmates had were either "dancers" or "strippers."

Only problem is we keep on telling women that math is too "tough" for them and channel them to the majors and careers that are less paying than subjects that have traditionally been pursued by men.

Of course, when we say this, everybody gets in a hissy fits and demands blood. Larry Summers lost his job over it. Feminists and leftists don't like it because women entering the sciences would result in more capitalists and Republicans and take away from the liberal arts.

Besides which...it just occurred to me...if we encouraged girls to major in the sciences, where would we get our Playboy Playmates?

Uhhh..sooo...ummm, yeah, on second thought ENCOURAGE YOUR YOUNG DAUGHTERS TO MAJOR IN FLUFF! We wouldn't want them getting real jobs with real careers. We men need them desperate enough to disrobe for our viewing pleasure.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The problem with surrounding yourself with informed educated people is you start to think that everybody in the world is as informed and educated. Therefore when I see charts like this;

I am harshly reminded just what an insanely high percent of the population are morons. How (with all the hype and worry about global warming not to mention our drive to become energy independent) could we only have a 44% support rate for nuclear power?

I don't know what others' experiences have been with MBA's, but basically mine have been;

"Have a pulse? Get an MBA!"

I'm not impressed with MBA's. In business school I learned and took the exact same classes the MBA's did and the truth is things like "management" or "leadership" is all BS when you try to codify it and turn it into a class. Things like "management" and "leadership" cannot be learned, only experienced. Thus, when I see some 27 year old MBA putz who when not wearing a suit and tie is wearing his baseball cap on backwards with the latest in Ambercrombie and Fitch whilst at Applebee's and calls girls "hawt!" I have a hard time really taking the "rank" or "title" of an MBA seriously, let alone would charter the individual with a position of power.

So it does not make me have great hope for the future that when GDP goes down, MBA applications go up.

Regardless, my position on MBA's runs contrary to the realities of the labor market. Firms do pay more for MBA's. Ergo there must be some benefit, and I think I've found it.

You don't hire an MBA to lead or to think. You hire them to obey. And if there is an advantage to an MBA, they certainly obey. Which only make sense, because in corporate America conformance and obedience is much more sought after than thinking or progress.

The Economist had an interest item showing a disproportionate # of our presidents (especially recently) have been south paws. And if I read the article correctly, both McCain and Obama are lefties too (of course some more than others HAR HAR HAR!!!)

“I ordered some wine so I could go and share it with the masses and we all sing kumbya while talking about how dreamy Obama is.”

I wanted some wine for me, because I wanted some freaking wine.

But sure as bears and popes, the girl slowly reaches across the table, going for my glass of wine.

Not even asking.

Not even requesting permission.

Just sloooooowly moving her hand across the table, making a bee line towards MY wine.

I waited patiently for her hand to make contact with it, but once it did I said,

“Whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa! Just what do you think you’re doing?”

Almost with a shocked look on her face she said, “I was just going to have a sip of your wine.”

Now let me explain something to ladies out there. You see, I ordered MY wine because I wanted some wine for ME. When men buy themselves something, they intended it for them. Not for you. Not to be shared. Not to make us have warm fuzzies in our stomachs as we all capitulate to Marxism and spread the wealth. It’s for us! Not you.

So I explained the concept of how I forfeited some of my finite life in exchange for the money to buy this wine for ME. That I gave up a part of my life in the form of labor to earn the money that bought me this wine and ergo, I was 100% entitled to all of it. Every single drop. I went so far as even to offer to buy her, her own glass of wine if she wanted one. But then she dropped the Ultra-Marxist bomb on me;

“But I want to taste yours.”

You see, this is why women deep down inside are communists. They don’t want to pay to taste some wine. They don’t want to even have their entire whole glass of wine. No, they want a “little sip” of YOUR wine.

So I asked said girl,

“Said Girl, why is it you want a sip of MY wine when I am more than willing to buy you your own glass of wine?”

And the Leninist across the table from me responded,

“Because I just want a sip. Besides it tastes better when it’s somebody else’s.”

This confirmed something I knew all along. Communists derive an additional utility from the same volume of consumption if what they’re consuming is somebody else’s. It’s a sick and twisted masochistic aspect of the weaker political ideology.

I was always intuitively aware of this as the same thing happened with fries. Lord knows you couldn’t just sit there on a date in high school, about to engorged yourself with those heavenly McDonald’s fries, and then, sure as bears and popes some your 16 year old steady is burrowing into YOUR fries like a badger in a hole. But now I had proof, a confession, self-admitted guilt she was gunning for my wine because it was MY wine.

And don’t think for a second this is just relegated to fries or wine. Oh no no no no! Ice cream. My god, has any man in the history of America been able to enjoy 100% of his own, labor-bought-and-paid-for ice cream? Can’t get one bite before “she” wants to “try” some of “your” ice cream.

Any pie left in the fridge? Go ahead and try to have a full piece of pie. Oh no, you can’t. Not in a million years. Even though there is a whole 3/4ths of a pie in the fridge and she could very well have her own entire piece of pie to herself, no, she wants “just a little bite” of yours.

And don’t think it’s just relegated to food. Ha! If you had a favorite shirt she likes, yeah, well pal, you HAD a favorite shirt. Now it’s a communal shirt. That nice little sporty convertible you have out there. If it’s 85 and sunny, she’s going to want a little taste of that. Nothing is safe from their Marxist reach.

Of course, try to then share something that was intended to be shared and she wants none of it. Video games are the perfect example. Designed to bring the masses together, designed to make us all players, designed to increase camaraderie and bonding and bring us all closer together, arguably the key to world peace, but oh no, she wants none of that. No, it has to be something that she covets. Your ice cream. Your wine. Your martini. Your convertible. Your favorite old ratty sweatshirt from college.

Oh, and you may be laughing now, but they’re out there men. And it all starts with just a “little sip” of your much-coveted wine.

Again, I shall ask the question; "why is everything in English at the olympics?"

Not that I'm for diversity and puppy dogs and flowers and progressive taxation, but if we're all playing in China, and given China is 1/5th the population, wouldn't the majority of the lettering and people's jersey's be in Mandarin or Cantonese?

Friday, August 08, 2008

So I went out to the Black Hills/Badlands area earlier this week and I uncovered a mystery that I can't figure out and am figuring one of you savvy junior, deputy, official or otherwise economists might do a little better.

I was in the FAR south west corner of South Dakota. And when I say far, I mean literally 1 mile east of the Wyoming border and about 5 miles north of the Nebraska border. There is absolutely NOTHING out there (bar some crystals and what not which I did find). No paved roads, no telephone wires, no traffic, no town, no buildings, no farms. True wilderness. Regardless, I come around a dirt road corner and in the distance I see this (you'll have to click on it to see the detail).

Way off in the distance are these buildings.

Now I looked at a map and there is no town nearby. The closest town is a town called Igloo, South Dakota, but these buildings are not part of it.

I then did a google satellite image search and found the exact same thing I had seen from the ground.

Miles of the stuff. I just saw the edge. The geometric patterns is what I noticed the most.

Now I have no idea what these buildings are. Housing for cattle? Didn't see any cattle or livestock and there were so many buildings. Storage of some kind? In any case, see if you can solve the mystery.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

I never had any real idea as to how to measure what I'd deem "success" based on the number of books I sold. I was thinking I'd be pretty happy with 5,000. If I could pull that off all by my little lonesome, that would be pretty sweet (plus it would really piss off a lot of leftists who genuinely would love to see the book fail). But I think a more reasonable goal would be simply to beat Nancy Pelosi.

If I can sell more than 2,737 copies, I will raise a celebratory glass of scotch.

So Natasha and I are doing what economists do best and compare prices for hotels before we shack up for the night. I leave at least 4 hours for this activity for not only do I enjoy it, but the economics of hotel pricing of it fascinates me. It's a weird unsolvable puzzle like airline pricing.

In any case we go to Shilo Inns in Casper, Wyoming, they quote Natasha $89 for one night WITH a triple A discount.

We drive to the local library, go online, use www.hotels.com and we got it reserved for $58.

So for the 15 minutes of work, it saved us roughly $30.

So we go back.

They do not have the reservation yet because it has to be authorized from Portland.

"Great" I say to myself, "Portland. Land of liberals who will get around to it when the city council pays them to get off their pot break and maybe contribute to GDP here or there."

Sure enough the authorization comes through and we get our room.

Sadly they gave us the wrong keys to our room and so, your beloved Captain, has to trapse back downstairs and get the CORRECT key for the room.

It was at this moment in time the Captain decided to enter "I'm done being nice and think what this world needs are people to bitch slap the rest of the masses across the face to wake them the ef up to reality that they work for a living and to get their heads out of their asses and start doing their freaking jobs" mode and sternly lectured the obese attendee at the desk to give us the "correct effing keys" to the "correct effing room."

Thinking my job is done, I return to the room, open it (with the correct keys) and what do I see? This:

Apparently I can pay $1.50 to drink their bottled water. But also, oh wow, gee, shucks howdy, I can

GO GREEN if I just leave this card on the bed so they don't change my linens!

Now, I don't know about you, but I am getting mighty sick and tired of this going green shit. I'm done feigning like there's some kind of nobility or worth of going green and I will adamantly refuse that "going green" is doing the "right thing." And I am insulted with corporations that dare insult my intelligence that "they're going green" thinking somehow I'm as dumb as the environmental-nazi minority in this country and will somehow place higher value on a capitulating, conforming corporation that "goes green" because they have no principles or morals.

Ergo, please just do the Captian and all of American, Liberty and Freedom a favor,

WILL YOU PLEASE BOYCOTT THESE DUMBASS CORPORATIONS THAT GO GREEN????

No, seriously, just don't patronize them. Inform them you're insulted with this "going green" shit. I'm done with it. Not until people speak out and say, "hey, I'm not a f@cking 4th grader willing to be brainwashed. Take this nazi-enviro-propoganda out of my face and shove it. Matter of fact, I'm not paying my tab and you can go ef yourself." will these mindless corporations take note.

Of course, what do I know? I'm just a dumb lowly Captain in the never ending battle between those who want to work for themselves and those who want to parasite off of them.

It seems nobody wants to adhere to the definition of a recession anymore.

Again people, TWO SUCCESSIVE quarters of negative economic growth. That is what defines a recession. We can argue we're in a slow down. We can say we're not doing as good. We can say we're about to enter one (which I believe we will). But we're not FACTUALLY in a recession.

Additionally, I want to have a little review of the unemployment rate. I'm getting more and more stories from friends and associates who run into people that complain about the unemployment rate being "horrible." So here is the unemployment rate. I'd recommend printing off this chart so the next time you run into these ignorant fools you can show this to them and tell them to shut the hell up.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Quick little story, then I shall recap my trip, but I was in Sturgis the morning of the first day of the rally. Heard John McCain was in Sturgis and Obama was not.

And as I sat there and enjoyed a cigar and a Jack Daniels at 10AM at the Loud American Roadhouse, I had an epiphany why McCain was there and Obama was not;

John McCain (for all my differences with the man) is a genuine American who loves America and would be nowhere else on the first week of August except for Sturgis.

Obama is a genuine marxist who hates America as it can only be defined by the Sturgis rally and therefore was having arugula (and no I don't care to learn how to spell it because I don't care to become so elitist) and pandering at the time to anything but an American crowd.

This simple fact - the fact McCain was at Sturgis and Obama was not - should show you where their loyalties lie.

Friday, August 01, 2008

Obama, having the oil companies pay $1,000 per family WILL NOT LOWER THE F^CKING PRICE OF OIL!!!!

Then again, I perhaps am letting him get to me, because he knows damn well it won't. He's just doing what he needs to, to get people to vote for him. Of course the people who fall for this tripe are genuine, quintessential idiots. But that is the only way him or Pelosi or the rest of the socialists can get elected. They rely on idiots, and I mean that in the meanest, coldest, truest sense. The people who fall for their BS are idiots. They are ignorant, emotional little creatures who could never muster up the intellectual capacity to set their emotions aside and have the nobility, let alone intellect to search for the truth and then vote, not for their best interests, but because they realize this is a democracy and they have a responsibility to look out for the best interests of the country.

On a side note, if there are any Captain Capitalismites out in the Rapid City area that are up for a drink shoot me an e-mail!